Curtis Morgan
Source: The Miami Herald
August 26, 2010

There's a turf war going on under the warm waters off the Florida Keys, a battle for no less than dominance of dying coral reef tracts.

It's sponge vs. seaweed, a match-up that for obvious reasons hasn't generated much attention. With the competitors lacking charisma, claws, teeth, spines, fins, legs or any mobility whatsoever, this struggle is slow, painfully so. But scientists running a long-term monitoring program call its outcome crucial to an array of fish, lobster and other reef denizens.

So far, sponges, particularly the Caribbean barrel variety that can grow larger than a backyard hot tub, are edging out macroalgae, commonly known as seaweed. That's about the only bright side to the dismal decline of corals from Biscayne Bay to the Bahamas and throughout the broader Caribbean basin.

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